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From oneb!cs.ubc.ca!destroyer!caen!uunet!olivea!sgigate!sgi!cdp!cberlet Mon Dec 14 13:14:54 PST 1992
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From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: LaRouchians as Fascists!
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Date: 12 Dec 92 02:30:00 GMT
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/* Written 9:15 pm Dec 8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written 7:44 pm Dec 8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written 10:16 pm Dec 18, 1990 by nlgclc in igc:publiceye */
LAROUCHE AS FASCIST: PART TWO
------
The Paranoid Style
LaRouche's parlaying of personal and political
conspiracy theories into a multi-million dollar
financial empire is unique, but paranoid
political movments occur cyclically in American
history. In his widely-quoted essay "The Paranoid
Style in American Politics," professor Richard
Hofstadter argues that in times of economic,
social or political crisis, small
conspiracy-minded groups suddenly gain a mass
following. The anti-Catholic hysteria of the
1800's, the anti-immmigrant movement which led to
the Palmer Raids in 1919, the Red Scare of the
1950's and other societal convulsions, are
examples, wrote Hofstadter.
Such movements rise and fall periodically,
according to Hofstadter, appealing to people
fearful about the world political and economic
situation, and longing for simple solutions to
complex problems. The use of scapegoats is common
among these movements.
The findings of two academics who studied a
LaRouche campaign contributor list (available
from the Federal Election Commission) lend
support to the thesis that LaRouche appeals to a paranoid
constituency. In a 1986 press release, "Who
Controls Us: A Profile of Lyndon LaRouche's
Campaign Contributors," John C. Green and James
L. Guth of Furman University identify LaRouche as
"a new celebrity on the extreme right."
"An analysis of his campaign contributors
suggests that LaRouche should be taken seriously,
not as a candidate, but as evidence of the
failure--and success--American politics," wrote
the professors.
According to the results of the study, among
LaRouche's contributors are a significant
proportion of Northern neo-populist
conservatives, "profoundly uncomfortable with
modern America and susceptible to conspiratorial
explanations of their distress. One seemed to
speak for the others when he listed his major
concern as `who really controls us?' To many of
these alienated people, LaRouche's outlandish
views offer a plausible answer to this question."
According to the study:
"Though LaRouche campaigns
as a Democrat, most of his donors are
independents, with the largest group `leaning'
Republican. but ordinary people as well,
believing that no one can be trusted `most of the
time.' Very few say they are optimistic about
their future or that of the country. They are
equally disillusioned with politics, 40% report
having become discouraged and ceased
participating at some point. These attitudes
extend to current political groups as well.
Three-quarters feel `far' from mainstream
conservative organizations such as the Chamber of
Commerce. Roughly equal numbers feel `close' and
`far' from more reactionary groups like the John
Birch Society. Uniform dislike, however, is
reserved for liberal advocates of change; the
ACLU, Common Cause and Ralph Nader.
"LaRouche is most criticized for his
political intolerance, a trait exhibited
by his contributors. To measure
tolerance, we asked all donors to name a group
they regarded as `dangerous' and then asked if
they would allow a member of that group to run
for president, speak in a public place or teach
in public school. Only a quarter of the
LaRouchians would allow a member of their
`dangerous' group to engage in all three
activities and another quarter would allow
none.
"LaRouche would probably approve of their
choice of `dangerous' groups: more than half of
the mentions figure prominently in `conspiracy'
theories of politics, such as communists, drug
dealers, Jews, bankers, intellectuals and the
mass media. Some `conspiracies' are explicitly
named: the `zionist-socialist movement,' the
`international drug ring,' `cartel control of
money' and the `post-industrial counter-culture.'
But other donors identify mainstream
organizations and leaders as `dangerous,'
including the `unilateral disarmament advocates,'
`eco-freaks,' `Hayden and Fonda,' `socialist
Democrats' and `big labor bosses.'
"These kinds of attitudes occur among other
conservative activists, but rarely to this extent.
And the LaRouchians differ from other conservatives
in demographic terms as well. LaRouche's donors
seem to be the remnant of the `small town
America' of a generation ago. Nearly
three-quarters were born in the Midwest or
Northeast and more than half still live there,
outside the major cities. Most spent their adult
life in one or two states; the only major move
they have ever made was to retire to the Sunbelt.
Two-thirds are 55 or older, male, of WASP or
German extraction, and products of [nuclear
two-parent] families. They are not, however,
particularly religious; most belong to mainline
Protestant denominations and few are active
church members. "
The authors concluded, "it is alienated people
who make fringe candidates possible. LaRouche
should be taken seriously as a symptom of
distress in a small part of the body politic.
His limited appeal is a sign of the basic health
of America politics."
One historian, author George Seldes, thinks
LaRouche has followed another seldom travelled
but clearly recognizable historic path--the road
from Socialism through National Socialism to
Fascism. Seldes has authored some ten books
concerning authoritarianism and thinks LaRouche's
theories and style represent classic
"Mussolini-style fascist" ideology. Seldes'
analysis carries weight especially since he wrote
a biography of Mussolini in 1935 titled
Secret Agent LaRouche
In a sense LaRouche is a "Silicon Caesar"
since he has risen to power through a
sophisticated computerized telecommunications
network which gathers political and economic
intelligence and then packages it for
dissemination through newsletters, magazines,
special reports and consulting services. Former
Reagan advisor and National Security Council
senior analyst, Dr. Norman Bailey, told NBC
reporter Pat Lynch the LaRouche network was "one
of the best private intelligence services
in the world."
Not everyone shares the view. When Henry
Kissinger was told of how LaRouche operatives met
with high Reagan Administration officials in the
early 1980's, he told the ,
"If this is true, it would be outrageous, stupid,
and nearly unforgivable." Dennis King, co-author
of the article which examined
LaRouche's influence in scientific and
intelligence circles, says during the first
Reagan term LaRouche aides managed to gain
"access to an alarming array of influential
persons in government, law enforcement,
scientific research and private industry." These
ties form the basis of the LaRouche "CIA defense"
against the charges he conspired to obstruct
justice. LaRouche claims he believed his security
aide Roy Frankhauser, a former Ku Klux Klan
leader and government law enforcement informant,
was a covert conduit to the CIA.
John Rees, an ultra-conservative whose
newsletter reports on
political extremes on the left and right,
says he "believes the
story that LaRouche staffers had
access to a lot of people." But he points out,
"If you have all the electronic resources and
information-gathering staff that LaRouche
posesses you are bound to come up with occasional
gems, that's what most people were interested in,
not the LaRouche philosophy." Both King and Rees
feel the Reagan Administration consciously began
distancing itself from contacts with the LaRouche
network following the
and NBC stories.
Russ Bellant, a long-time LaRouche watcher
from Detroit, notes that in the mid-1970's
LaRouche simultaneously turned to the right and
tried to link up with more respectable groups,
including, for a brief period, several state
Republican Party organizations. "Some tactical
political alliances with various right-wing
groups were made on the basis of LaRouche's
scurrilous disruption campaigns against mutual
enemies, especially liberal Democrats," says
Bellant. In fact, LaRouche has consistently
targetted the American left, and done so with
material and moral support from small but
significant elements in law enforcement, the
Republican Party and the American far right.
There is also evidence to suggest that the
LaRouche organization maintained a cozy
relationship with certain elements in U.S. and
foreign intelligence, military
and police agencies.
Bellant and other LaRouche-watchers feel the
LaRouche network and its questionable finances
and intelligence activities may have been
overlooked by certain individuals in intelligence
and law enforcement agencies. "These persons were
focusing more on the information being churned up
by LaRouche's intelligence-gathering apparatus,"
says Bellant.
LaRouche-related financial operations have run
afoul of the law before, but by adopting an
aggressive legal strategy his groups have been
able to fend off successful prosecution for years
until cases were dropped or settled by exhausted
plaintiffs and prosecutors. One Illinois case
involving LaRouche-backed mayoral candidate
Sheila Jones and LaRouche's Illinois Anti-Drug
Coaliton has dragged on for over six years.
The 1986 Illinois primary victory by two
LaRouche followers, however, raised the ante.
"The visibility that came to LaRouche after the
Illinois primary lent credibility to the
investigations into his financial operations by
bringing forward scores of persons who claimed to
have been defrauded by LaRouche operations over
the years," says Bellant. There are probably a
variety of reasons why the ties between LaRouche
and various government agencies and personalities
were severed in the mid-1980's. Highly-publicized
incidents such as the airport battle between
LaRouchies and Henry Kissinger and his wife
helped doom the LaRouche network's relationship
with the Reagan Administration--their profile
just became too visible for a continued
relationship.
Principled conservatives challenged
the Reagan Administration to justify its
flirtation with an anti-Semitic group.
Intelligence specialists questioned the wisdom of
sharing thoughts with a group which historically
worked both sides of the political fence
separating allies from adversaries. Even Oliver
North got into the act when his fundraisers and
security specialists found LaRouche emissaries
were getting underfoot.
LaRouche security expert Jeff Steinberg, who
used to meet with National Security Council
staffers at the Old Executive Office Building in
the White House compound, spent much of 1988 in a
Boston courtroom facing criminal charges. However
it appears the criminal investigation which led
to the current legal problems faced by LaRouche
and his followers began before the controversy
over his ties to the Reagan Administration had
reached key decision-makers in government
agencies. While there is some evidence of
prosecutorial misconduct and civil liberties
violations in the course of some of the federal
investigations and prosecutions, the claim by
LaRouche spokespersons that the indictments are
part of a government conspiracy to silence
LaRouche appear to be without foundation.
Political Puzzle?
Russ Bellant's articles on LaRouche have
appeared in liberal Michigan weeklies and
progressive publications, while John Rees tills
the right side of the journalistic garden. But
both agree LaRouche's ideology is now neither
Marxist nor conservative. Rees, who for years has
written for conservative, anti-communist, and
New-Right publications (including several
magazines published by the John Birch Society),
thinks it is unfair ever to have called LaRouche
a conservative simply because he has tried to woo
that political block.
"He is emphatically not a conservative," says
Rees, "he is a totalitarian extremist with a cult of
personality to rival Joseph Stalin's." Rees
concedes that LaRouche's politics are distorted
and strange, saying "he is difficult to
categorize--in a sense LaRouche is a remedial
Fascist. At least Mussolini could make the trains
run on time. I doubt LaRouche is capable
of doing that."
Rees claims that "when LaRouche was rejected
by the totalitarian left, he simply tried the
other side of the totalitarian spectrum."
According to Rees, ties between the LaRouche
network and several racist and anti-Semitic
groups are well-established. "Former LaRouche
organizers report cooperation with elements of
the Aryan Nations Network," adds Bellant who says
the LaRouche network is a "neo-Nazi type of
cult."
Racism and Anti-Jewish Rhetoric
LaRouche has many connections to the racist
political right in this country. Richard
Lobenthal, Midwest Regional Director for the
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, observes
that LaRouche security advisor Roy Frankhauser
"has been identified as present with other white
supremacists at meetings held at the farm of
Pastor Bob Miles in Michigan." Leaders of the
notoriously racist and anti-Semitic Aryan Nations
have attended the same meetings.
"Frankhauser's background and connections are
myriad, he is obviously a LaRouchite, he is a
professed racist and anti-Semite and was a close
associate of neo-Nazi leader George Lincoln
Rockwell," says Lobenthal.
LaRouche not only works in coalitions with
bigots, he has also propounded ideas which are
widely perceived to represent outright racism.
LaRouche, for instance, offended the Hispanic
community in a November, 1973 essay (published in
both English and Spanish) titled "The Male
Impotence of the Puerto-Rican Socialist Party."
An internal memo by LaRouche asked "Can we
imagine anything more viciously sadistic than the
Black Ghetto mother?" He described the majority
of the Chinese people as "approximating the lower
animal species" by manifesting a "paranoid
personality. . . .a parallel general form of
fundamental distinction from actual
human personalities."
LaRouche's use of hysterical Jewish conspiracy
theories for ulterior political motives has lead
him to be branded an anti-Semite by several major
Jewish groups.
One ADL spokesperson, Irwin Suall, was once
sued for defamation by LaRouche for calling him a
"small time Hitler." The jury ruled against
LaRouche. According to LaRouche, only a million
and a half Jews perished in the concentration
camps, and they died primarily from overwork,
disease, and starvation. This denial of the
Holocaust is coupled with pronouncements saying
there is nothing left of Jewish culture except
what couldn't be sold to Gentiles, or claiming
British Jews brought Hitler into power.
While many of the ringleaders of the global
conspiracy, according to the LaRouche philosophy,
are Jewish, members of the LaRouche group rebut
charges of anti-Semitism by pointing out that a
number of them--including Janice Hart, former
Democratic nominee for the Illinois Secretary of
State--are Jewish. The Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith, which has successfully beat back
several costly LaRouche lawsuits, rejects this
explanation and insists the group is a paranoid,
anti-Semitic political cult.
For his part, LaRouche claims to be merely
anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. Jewish groups and
political scientists acknowledge the important
distinction, but LaRouche rhetoric--such as
leaflets distributed in California bearing
the offensive headline "Smash the Kosher
Nostra!" and naming a number of Jewish figures as
part of a global conspiracy, leaves little doubt.
Since 1976, the NCLC's ties to anti-Semitic,
ultra-right groups and individuals have been well
documented. LaRouche associates have cultivated
ties to Willis Carto, a notorious racist and
anti-Semite who helped found Liberty Lobby and
the pseudo-scholarly Institute for Historical
Review. This latter group publishes "historical
revisionist" literature deriding the Nazi
Holocaust as a Jewish hoax.
Former staffers at both the Liberty Lobby and
LaRouche's NCLC claim the two groups cooperated
closely on several projects. In the March 2, 1981
issue of its newspaper , Liberty
Lobby cynically defended the relationship this
way: "It is mystifying why so many
anti-communists and `conservatives' oppose the
USLP [U.S. Labor Party --the NCLC's original
electoral arm]. No group has done so much to
confuse, disorient, and disunify the Left as they
have. . .the USLP should be encouraged, as should
all similar breakaway groups from the Left, for
this is the only way that the Left can be
weakened and broken."
Linda Ray, the outspoken former member of the
LaRouche group, recently published a first-person
account of her experiences in the Chicago-based
national weekly . She
recalls that after leaving the group, someone
showed her a LaRouche organization pamphlet she
had once sold on the street. "In it the Jewish
symbol, the Star of David, was used as a
centerpiece to point to six different aspects of
the illegal drug trade. In this context, the Star
of David was a symbol of evil." She was shocked
when she realized she had not recognized this
while still working with LaRouche.
"Many people find it difficult
to understand how Jews--such as
I--could have worked for an anti-Semitic group.
Perhaps the answer is that the members get so
hypnotized by the simplistic `good guys and bad
guys' approach to history that they do not hear
what LaRouche is really saying."
Ray recalls how LaRouche claimed the British
were a different "subhuman species" and how his
magazine concocted the charge
that the British created the Nazi movement."Since
the blasts were overtly directed against the
British, Jewish members often did not recognize
the subliminal anti-Semitism of the attacks.
LaRouche, like the Ku Klux Klan, Hitler and
Goebbels, was attacking the Rothschilds and other
British-Jewish banking interests. In the wake of
these anti-Semitic writings, many of us were
confused. But we continued to defend LaRouche by
lamely saying, `We're not anti-Semitic. So many
of our members are Jews. We always say in our
publications that we are against the Nazis.'
"I remember reading in detail about the `subhuman
species' concept. Although I knew it did not make
scientific sense, I presumed that it was a deep
intellectual metaphor that was over my head."
When Ray left the group and finally came to
grips with her role as a Jew working in an
anti-Semitic organization, she says "It was as if
I was waking from a nightmare."
LaRouche's relationship with Blacks--including
his own Black NCLC members--is similarly
confusing and complex. While LaRouche's writings
are replete with racialist assertions extolling
white Northern European values at the expense of
other ethnic values, he has in some cases
succeeded in forging alliances with rightist or
opportunist black politicians and civil rights
leaders, such as Roy Innis of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) and Hulan Jack, a former
Borough president and powerhouse in the New York
Democratic Party. Articles from LaRouche's have appeared in publications
of Rev. Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.
At the same time they are recruiting Blacks,
LaRouche publications praise the wisdom of the
Botha government in South Africa, and attack
those who protest the system of apartheid.
LaRouchian rhetoric can often offend numerous
constituencies simultaneously. The July 7, 1986
issue of the , an insert
tucked into LaRouche's (now
) newspaper, covered the Ku
Klux Klan counter rally against Chicago's annual
Gay Pride parade by charging: "The idea behind
the KKK outburst was--amid heavy media coverage
of a mere two dozen Klan demonstrators--to make
citizens think anyone who wants to take serious
measures against AIDS is a cross-burner and a
Nazi. . . .In fact, the Klan does not
exist--except as a special dirty-tricks operation
of the FBI and the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation
League. "
The article went on to say the founders of
B'nai B'rith were "about as Jewish as Josef
Goebbels."When Illinois Congressman Sidney Yates
faced LaRouche-backed challenger Sheila Jones,
LaRouche supporters distributed leaflets titled
"So, What's A Nice Jewish Boy Doing Supporting
Sodomy?" Former Chicago mayor Jane Byrne was
targetted in one mayoral race with a LaRouche
candidate's campaign slogan of "Byrne the Witch."
In attacking political enemies, LaRouche
propoganda often utilizes racist, anti-Jewish,
sexist or homophobic stereotypes.
Defining the Terms
The LaRouche cult fits the description of a
totalitarian movement as outlined by Hanna Arendt
in
Totalitariansim is correctly defined by its
all-encompasing style, structure and methods, not
by its stated or apparent ideological premises or
goals. Arendt wrote that not all fascist groups
were necessarily totalitarian and not all
totalitarian groups were necessariy fascist.
Is LaRouche a fascist? The goal of fascism is
always raw power, and it will adopt or abandon
any principle to obtain power. The chameleon-like
nature of fascist theories is one of its
hallmarks, and often leads to confusion as to
whether it is on the political left or right as
it opportunistically gobbles up popular slogans
from existing movements.
Journalist James Ridgeway notes there are real
contradictions in LaRouche's politics: "While it
maintains contacts with far-right groups,
LaRouche's organization is ideologically at
cross-purposes with many which are nativist and
anarchist. LaRouche is an internationalist and a
totalitarian: he believes the masses are
`bestial' and unfit for citizenship."
Freelance journalist Nick Gallo takes us a
step further. In he
acknowledges that much of what LaRouche espouses
"appears kooky, if only because his ideas
certainly defy conventional political analysis. .
. .However go beyond the individual positions on
different issues and beneath the surface lurk
echoes of sinister themes that have been
prevalent in the 20th century: preservation of
Western Civilization, purity of culture and
youth, elimination of Jewish and homosexual
influence, suspicion of international
banking conspiracies."
The opportunistic exploitation of
anxiety-producing issues by LaRouchies is no
surprise to Clara Fraser who knew LaRouche when
he was in the Socialist Workers Party. Writing in the
newspaper, she explains,
"The pundits are intrigued and puzzled by his
amalgam of right and left politics, a tangled web
of KKK, Freudian, encounter therapy, Populist,
Ayn Rand-like, and Marxist notions. They needn't
be. His is the prototypical face of fascism,
which is classically a hodgepodge of
pseudo-theories crafted for mass appeal. . . ."
Themes generally associated with fascism
frequently recur in LaRouche's writings. In the
aggregate, LaRouche seems to like the idea of
society with an authoritarian governing body,
exercising social, political, economic, and
cultural control, using force when necessary to
maintain order and attain desired goals.
Traditional democracy is contemptuously dismissed
by LaRouche, who describes himself as a
"traditional Democrat," as the "rule of
irrationalist episodic majorities."
When LaRouche touts his followers as
"neo-Platonic" theorists, most people aren't
aware that in Plato outlined
his view of a political system in which only a
handful of enlightened "Golden Souls" would be
allowed to participate in societal
desision-making. While this was certainly a step
forward from imperial dictatorship and rule by
fiat, it is hardly a step forward for a
participatory democracy. LaRouche, incidently,
has said his followers are "Golden Souls."
Combining fascism and totalitarianism makes
for a potent mixture, but even a totalitarian
fascist is not necessarily a Nazi--for that you
must include a "Master Race" theory and roots in
an ostensibly socialist agenda for empowering the
working class. . movement and German Nazi
movement. In German the word itself--NAZI--was an
acronym for the National German Workers Socialist
Party. Most socialists now are painfully aware of
that error. LaRouche apparently repeated the error.
But can an organization which has Jews and
Blacks as members be called Nazi? The LaRouche
network's printed materials are full of
ethnocentric, racist, and anti-Jewish rhetoric,
but that doesn't necessarily make it Nazi. Where
is LaRouche's theory of a master race? In fact,
LaRouche himself has repeatedly enunciated just
such a theory, but in his typically convoluted way.
In the mind of Lyndon LaRouche, personal or
political opponents are not even human, Jerry
Brown and Tom Hayden are "creatures;" the rest of
us are merely "beasts" or "sheep."
According to Dennis King, it is LaRouche's
belief that his enemies are subhuman and his
followers superhuman which makes "LaRouche more
than a political fascist, but a neo-Nazi." King,
whose book on LaRouche is slated for publication
in 1989, adds that "people afraid of that
characterization should sit down and read his
ideological writings. LaRouche talks about the
existence of two parasitic species descended from
Babylonian culture, the British-Jewish and
Russian-Orthodox species, then there are the
subhuman masses, then humanity represented by
LaRouche and his followers, the Golden Souls, and
then a new superhuman race which will evolve from
the Golden Souls. It really is pure
Nazism," says King.
And if that makes no rational sense; and if
some of his followers are Jews and Blacks? "So
what?" retorts King "LaRouche is a totalitarian,
he can define anyone he wants to as being a
member of the human race, and anyone he wants to
as being a member of an inferior race, and he can
change the definitions from week to week--who is
going to argue with him?"
End of Part Two

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